Friday, October 28, 2011

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A small group of PETA protesters gathered at Stearns Wharf on Wednesday to protest fishing by handing out leaflets and hoisting attention-grabbing signs. Their message: fishing is wrong because fish feel pain and agony just as much as any other animal.

“Most people would never dream of trying to hook the family dog, but hooking a fish through the mouth and dragging it through the water is just as cruel as hooking the family dog and dragging it behind the car,” said Hayden Hamilton, a campaigner for PETA. “We just want people to make the connection that even though they’re not as familiar an animal as your cat or dog at home, that fish do feel pain. They do suffer, and we just want to want people to think twice about putting them on their plates.”

Two of the activists held signs that read, “Don’t Let Your Kids Become Hookers.” Aside from being a catchy play on words, this message was aimed at parents. “Nobody wants to set a bad example for their kids, but what parents don’t realize is that when they take their kids fishing, they are actually sending them the very dangerous message that it’s fun to torment and abuse animals,” Hamilton passionately explained.

This anti-fishing demonstration was only in Santa Barbara for the day. The activists are headed north to spread their message to Monterey and San Francisco in the coming days.

Comments

Cheap trashy little snippet article with no scientific reasoning to verify or repudiate emotional claims. Instead, teach your kids about the pain that Iraqi kids have endured under your daddys bombs for the last decade. Or check out the Homeless people with rotting teeth whose mouths hurt continuously due to the unavailability of reasonably priced dental care.

Small group as in 3 people? This sort of nonsense about “evil” hunters completely disregards Human physiology and evolution. Even Chimpanzees hunt (baboons and other monkeys), so it’s not even something unique to Homo Sapiens. Of course the fish would rather be sliced in half by a shark than a small prong hook? I notice the nice tennis shoes on two of the protesters in the photo—I guess they don’t know about how much pollution the making of tennis shoes causes nor the sweat shop type factories in Asia where they are made. Is that dress polyester? Another non renewable resource. And I’ll bet they took some kind of transportation (bus, car) to the beach as well. These protesters have apparently never read any of the literature by those studying major predator/prey relations (like lions and zebra or cheetahs and gazelle) or they’d know that the amount of pain (if any) a fish feels when ‘hooked” is actually quite minimal. But maybe they have petitioning the lions next on their agenda. -- and oh yes, HOW much income does Santa Barbara make off fishing??? HOW many people are they trying to put out of work????